Aiden was losing to the door. We heard another curse fly from the hobgoblin’s mouth, denouncing its builders. I on the other hand was quite impressed and wanted the designs for myself. I wanted everything in here if I could.

“Why would they make robots that look like the hobgoblins?” I picked up the arm of one of the fallen robots and let it fall limp. “Proportions are done well too.”

Yara groaned beside me, she was lying on the ground with her hand on her stomach. I sat down in the sand and one of Yara’s legs found its way into my lap as she stretched out. I absently traced my fingers up and down her leg. It seemed to ease her suffering, and It felt nice too since her body was so warm.

Yara squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples. “Keeper’s are weird folk Josh. Half of them take the crystals just long enough so they can smash them for the materials or they get it in their heads they can conquer half the world. The guy probably got used to having goblins and hobgoblins working for him, so why not style your construct army on them? It’s not unheard of for wizards to use golems to wage war.”

“We seemed to handle them well,” I said. “Probably not a great army to rely on.”

“Ah but Josh, you forget we are purpose built warriors. These machines were probably level two at the most, and would be good enough to fight farmers and conscripts. Also I think you are missing the point of these things,” Yara said.

Her tail rose and the heart shaped tip pointed towards the wall. There was a series of cut up tubes set into the wall with wires jutting out of them at eye level. I looked at the remains of our foes and saw at the base of the hobgoblin's necks where plugs.

“You still have to charge them up. That means you need mages or a lot of mana crystals,” I said.

Yara gave me a glare. “How much do you need to pay them? How many supply trains do you need to drag behind the army? Those are always slow moving groups that are easy to raid or for corrupt quartermasters to sneak supplies out of. Getting a handful of mages desperate for work to play along long enough to charge up your army of metal warriors is easy in comparison.”

I had slowed my hand and I felt Yara’s tail wrap around my wrist. I went back to what I was doing and Yara set her head back in the sand. Aiden was still working on the door and I let Yara’s words spin in my mind.

I knew some things about logistics from my old job. Getting stuff from point A to point B in a fast and efficient manner was always impossible. Stuff got damaged in transit, or got delayed for no good reason. That was all in my safe town back home, not in a world full of dangerous magical creatures and spell slinging bandits. Rickety wagons and long lines with beasts of burden would be annoying to get over the countryside.

The more I thought about it the more it made sense for the other keeper to go for the robots too. Adventurers like us were around, and could easily fight them, but why would we be out in the countryside if everyone was fleeing to the bigger cities. If his whole intention was to capture and claim small villages in the area then he probably would have been able to easily walk over their defenses.

I shook my head at such thoughts. It wasn’t like Earth where I was a stranger to war. I was fortunate enough to have lived in a safe country far from most conflicts, but now here I was, about to be brought into one when it hit spring. I curiously wondered how hard it would be to fix these robots and turn them to my side.

“I can see the gears turning in that skull of yours and if you are thinking of using these things then you might be in for a rough time,” Yara said.

“Oh? Well if you have a better idea for what to do during the spring let me know,” I said with a shrug. “It was just a thought, but I don’t even know the first thing about them.”

“Do you really want to trust them after you were able to fight them bare handed?” Yara laughed.

I gently slapped her calf and Yara’s eyes lit up like I had just issued her a challenge. I held up my finger and tried to be aloof. “If you personally rather take on the fighting all by your- Aha!”

Yara tackled me to the sand and rolled to her feet, holding me under her arm like a piece of lost luggage. There was a woosh of air that went towards Aiden, kicking up oil logged sand. Yara’s weapon found its way to her hand and we took cover behind the archery targets. Aiden was flat against the wall, his hands holding onto a lever for dear life. The sensation passed and the door he had been tinkering with slowly slid open, the grinding of gears marking every inch of distance it moved.

“Got it!” Aiden proudly announced.

“What in the world,” I said. I tapped on Yara’s side and she set me down. “Thanks.”

Yara rolled her shoulders and followed behind me. “I was rather enjoying our chat about building an army, shame.”

The door revealed a square room with several levers, strange looking spears and cabinets with full body suits and gas masks. All of it was goblin sized, and it confused my mind why it was here. There were two doors in here, a wide reinforced one that had a central spinning disk with several deadbolts and a mundane door labelled ‘maintenance’. Aiden made a beeline for the latter.

“Ah, perfect. There should be a ladder in here to get us up-” The door rattled in his grip and he growled in disappointment. He tried to jam his lockpick into the maintenance door’s lock and earned himself a shock, which sent the piece of metal flying off to some corner in the room. “By ancestors and wallowing swamp pits! That smarts.”

Aiden’s arm shook as sparks arced off it striking his chest and hair. It passed a second later and the hobgoblin's hair stuck out wildly. Yara cackled in delight while I tried to fight myself to keep it together.

Perception : Success!

+1 XP gained.

I saw something near the door and walked up to it. There was a small piece of metal in the wall and I wiped the dust off to find a small sign.

‘Maintenance door requires a maintenance approved key. Setting off the shock trap carries a 100 silver fine.’

“Hey, are those cabinet’s labelled?” I asked.

Yara wiped dust off the front of the cabinet, taking a moment to carefully inspect each set of equipment. “Yeah, they have names and jobs on them. Most are something called harvesters with two being maintenance guys. Both of their sets of gear are missing.”

Aiden, having smoothed his hair back down, checked the reinforced door and picked up a clipboard attached to the wall. “Looks like both of them wrote about checking the harvesting machines. They went through the door and never came back. Seems it would have been around the same time of morning our brawl with the goblin mage broke out.”

“Damn it. They might have escaped to the river with their gear and keys on,” I said.

Aiden took out his map to show us. “I don’t think so. There should be two, maybe three large rooms ahead of here, with the only way back being this door. This door looks like it can only be opened from this side. More than likely they got trapped inside and died.”

Yara shook her head in dismay. Her lips tightened and a hint of pain crossed her face. “What an awful way to go. Failed by your fellows. You never leave someone behind.”

Aiden was focused intently on the map, mumbling as he wondered what was on the other side. I put my hand on Yara’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. It shook her out of her funk, she flinched away from my touch and tried to look busy, although her tail touched my leg as if she was patting it.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

A pop up on the edge of my vision told me the scholars had something to say. It looked urgent too.

Scholar Livy

Listen I know we mostly sit here and ramble on about random facts but let an old man give you some advice. There’s something over there, and I can tell from those suits that they are built to resist fluids. It could be super cold liquid, poison or more. Try to make something to wear if you plan on going in there. I rather see our newest student live, and not have his lungs turn to shriveled lumps inside his body as he dies.

Side note by Scholar Bo

It’s been a while since we had a student that was an active adventurer. We look forward to this kind of entertainment!

Livy was quickly becoming one of my favourites. He seemed helpful, and dropped little bits of information that tied into who he was, but at the same time I knew I had to be careful. He had to be the kind of bombastic scholar that oversold details or swept things that put his ideals in a bad light under the rug. If I had to place him I would figure he would be akin to an old Greek or Roman scholar.

Aiden reached for a lever beside the door and I quickly acted. “Whoa there, let’s not jump the gun yet. These suits and masks are here for a reason.”

Aiden scoffed. “So what, goblins are fragile and fearful of everything. They probably wear them needlessly-”

“Are you immune to acid?” I snapped. “My goblin friend Burn saved your ass when we were falling straight into an acid pit. If these are here then I’m taking every precaution I can.”

The sudden flare of fury resided, and Aiden seemed stunned. Yara smirked and squeezed my shoulder in encouragement before she picked around the goblin’s equipment. A few of the goblin’s suits and masks were larger than the others, and in my case I could probably stretch the fabric suit over my gear. Yara and Aiden might not have such luck with the suits, and I assumed they would opt to wear the masks. I checked around my bandolier, but I had no needle to go with the thread.

“Damn, I wish Rolada was here. She might be able to break them apart and stitch them together for you guys,” I said.

Yara picked at one of the cabinets and pulled out a leather pouch. She dumped out the contents and a moldy, dried out sandwich hit the ground. A plume of rancid green powder rose in the air and dispersed around the forgotten lunchable. Yara used the end of her halberd to push it away as she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

I put my shirt over my nose and we backed up to another cabinet to raid, one away from the biohazard. I wondered what kind of weird mutant diseases would reign here, and once again I was thankful for my friends. That disease resistant talent I got long ago was nice to have to keep such worries at bay.

Yara raided another goblin worker’s cabinet, and was careful to avoid another leather lunch bag. She held up one of the strange looking gas masks, to me it looked just like the one I had seen Burn put on a few times. He mostly wore it when he worked with vaporous material in his shop to make his potions or other concoctions. A weird thought struck me, wouldn’t the vapours heal too? I voiced my opinion quietly to Yara and she chuckled.

“Listen, you don’t want to be around the healing houses when they are making batches of potions. Stuff stinks to the heavens and hells, not to mention most people have their nose hair burned off. Burn also happens to be the only alchemist I ever met that can make a healing potion that doesn’t taste like rancid barracks slop.” Yara stuck out her tongue and shivered as if a bad memory had reared its head. She waved a hand in front of her and sent me a pop up that had a recipe. “Here’s one in case you ever need to whip one up.”

I checked over the ingredients and I couldn’t place a single one. ‘Bittercat Root’ was listed as being common while the other two options I could mix in to complete it, ‘Waterbog Grass’ and ‘Ash Tuber’ were uncommon. The potion could even be brewed over a campfire if need be.

Knowledge Arcane : Success!

The creation of healing potions requires various toxic plants and materials to be processed together. There are a dozen different recipes to create this well known potion type. Adding additional ingredients and mana into the creation process will yield a more palatable final product.

These potions are one of the most produced in the world by alchemists and mages of all classes on account of the access to ingredients and wide spread knowledge. The creation process is dangerous and volatile however, and many people have gone mad from the mysterious ‘Healer’s Pox’ as they descend into insanity should they inhale the vapours often.

Healing potion recipe added!

+1 XP gained.

“Thanks Yara,” I grinned, giving her a thumbs up. “But, we should leave the potion making to Burn. Trust me, in college I wasn’t allowed to mix the drinks, I always messed it up somehow.”

Yara ruffled my hair and looked deep in thought. “Then I guess the drinking game I planned for the festival will be between Burn, Sten and I.”

“Oh? I’m certainly looking forward to it.” I put my cloak on one of the racks for a moment and tugged on the weird material of one of the full body suits. It made me think of the plastic or rubber quarantine suits I saw in movies, bright yellow, like a onesie, but a lot less fun. I tried my hardest to squeeze my legs into it, and felt like the circulation in my legs was getting strained. “Damn, this thing is tight.”

I did a half jump and tightened the straps around my waist. I heard a ripping sound behind me and Yara cackled. She gave me a light, playful swat on my behind. I craned my neck to see I had split the suit open around my ass.

“Your butt might be nicer than mine,” Yara said, tapping her chin as she inspected me. “We should get you more tight pants, it’s a good look.”

“Can you two leave it for after our escape?” Aiden hissed. He looked even more ridiculous as he had tried to squeeze into a suit too. He had torn it open around his elbows and knees, and it only came down to his forearms and shins. “Also why am I sweating so badly in it already?”

Yara bit her lip hard enough I could see her fang was breaking skin. She looked ready to throw herself down and laugh until she passed out. “Yeah, I’m just going to rely on my demonic resistance.”

“What’s that?” I asked. I took one step and felt the suit rip up to the small of my back. “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.”

Yara waited until I squeezed into the face mask to speak. “All demons have a basic resistance to several elemental damage types. Fire, ice, acid and poison. It’s not a ton usually, but I managed to bolster mine. Should be more than enough for any ambient gas clouds.”

Even as confident as she sounded, she still squeezed into one of the gas masks. I didn’t blame her, I didn’t want anything in my lungs. Aiden grabbed the lever by the door and slammed it down. The hissing of ancient air kicked up dust, and through the mask I smelled something foul. The door swung open on its massive hinges and revealed a small shaped cavern, with glowing moss covering the floor, walls and ceiling.

Aiden stepped on the moss, crushing it underfoot, causing bright neon pink fluid to gush around his feet. The wet sloshing sound made us all shudder, and we followed him in, with me turning on my flashlight for extra light. The glowing moss down here wasn’t as bright as I had seen elsewhere, it was dim and almost sickly.

After walking a stones throw into the room we made it clear of the ground moss, and found a very strange sight. The wall beside us was recently caved in, with thick plant roots getting cut off. Plant goop covered the ground, and a small trickle of watery fluid rolled past my feet.

Yara pushed aside a few stones to reveal the underground river and more underground caverns, with pathways stretching deeper into the earth. One of the horse sized white salamanders snoozed under a massive incandescent mushroom, soaking in the radiating heat. It lazily opened an eye to look at us through the rocky window, and it shuffled around to look away from us.

“Damn it, the maintenance workers probably went into the under caves looking for help,” Aiden said, speaking loudly to account for the mask.

“How dangerous is it in the caves?” I asked.

The salamander turned and gashed its fangs, hissing at us for disturbing its peace. It let out a furious snarl and tore the massive mushroom apart, whipping its head violently towards us. The remains of the mushroom crashed into the rocky wall, knocking several bowling ball sized rocks down from the impact. Orange liquid coated the small space we had to look at, and I watched as it took off into a passageway, vanishing from sight in mere moments.

“Does that answer it for you?” Aiden asked.

“Let’s see what they were harvesting first. If we can’t find anything I’ll break the wall down or just hack down the door and deal with the shock trap,” Yara said. She held her weapon at the ready and stayed close to me. “Careful with the fire down here Josh, there’s something in the air.”

We followed the natural flow of the small cavern to reach a much bigger one. The goblin’s had made a small little gated fence to block off the new area. Aiden used the tip of his blade to flick the latch, and it swung in, dropping a small misshapen black lump. It bounced when it hit the ground, like it was made of rubber, clearing a few feet before rolling to a stop in front of me.

It was semi-transparent, and I cautiously pointed my flashlight down at it. Inside the black lump was the terrified gaze of a goblin, his face frozen forever. A shiny bronze badge on his suit read ‘Maintenance Crew’.

No one spoke up, and I broke the silence. “What the fuc-”

Only then did I see the speeding shape hurtling towards me at mach three.